Working at Merida has definitely been a new and exciting experience! I never thought that I would be paid to make patterns, which is one of my favorite hobbies. This summer I created the company’s new business cards which started as actual rug samples. The designs were chosen from some of Merida’s most popular patterns for rugs from their Viewpoint and Tufted Glow Collections. For each design, I outlined the pattern (from the digital rug design) in Illustrator and adjusted the dimensions to fit within each card.
Below are the final graphics - Viewpoint’s Tulip and Dandelion designs, and Glow’s Prism and Refraction designs.
The second major project I worked on was helping create surface designs for Merida’s Hospitality Collection. I was asked to create a range of simple geometrics to organic florals. My first design was inspired by the traditional pinstripe. Making the pinstripe designs were actually the most fun because I could arrange the colors in so many different ways.
- Floral motifs and Pinstripe designs – colors inspired by Merida’s Hospitality color palette
On my last day at Merida, I set up my entire portfolio for Maegan to critique. It was a ton of work. We spent over an hour going through it all! She helped me plan for submitting my portfolio when applying to colleges this Fall. We invited all the Merida employees to come in and view the work I accomplished this summer.
More about the students from Youth Design Boston can be viewed here at youthdesign.org
Tags: sustainable design
Seems like an amazing opportunity. Not only did you get to see the patterns in their original form, you also get to see the designs being produced. I’m sure this will not only be a great portfolio piece, but a great experience as well.
Stacy, you did a wonderful job working at Merida for the summer. Keep up the good work!